Avner Ben-Gal: Sudden Poverty

The majority of texts written about Avner Ben-Gal focus on his nationality. The majority of his paintings from the early 2000s include graphic, violent imagery. Ben-Gal's recent work, however, has evolved beyond the political and religious challenges of the Middle East to convey the more oblique foreboding of contemporary society, with all of its attendant horrors, both perceived and actual. Employing a muted palette, he paints landscapes of non-specific places-those from a dream or a novel or an overheard rumor-and his compositions include blurred figures or solitary vegetation. Although his spaces are bleak and charged with emotion, they are neither prescriptive nor didactic. The works are a more universal reflection on our collective current life-a life that, although at times desolate, is punctuated by intense beauty.The Aspen Art Museum presents Avner Ben-Gal in his first one-person museum exhibition.